Over the next few posts – in this series, anyway – we’re going to take a look at the shading of objects (actually meshes) using the Forge viewer’s Data Visualization Extension (Project Hyperion). This is something we’ve done in Dasher for some time, and I was excited that using Hyperion would once again allow us not only to rip out some of our old code but also to go in new directions and explore interesting new capabilities.
Let’s first explain how this type of shading differs from what we’ve seen in previous posts, namely volumetric room and planar shading: simply put, this style looks at shading the surface of an object rather than a room. It’s also volumetric, but the effect can be applied to more uneven geometry. In fact the same low-level shader is used for both the volumetric approaches. Here’s the Hyperion documentation on this topic.
The main model we’ve used in the past to test out this mechanism is the one for the MX3D bridge (which I’m happy to say…